❦ ɪɴғᴇʀɴᴏ ;; 【ᴀᴛᴇᴇᴢ】

•04•

Sophie's pov:

Seonghwa tilted his head in confusion and leaned back, looking alarmed. He turned towards my left, to face the source of the voice.

A confused Wooyoung stood there, absolutely clueless about what he was staring at. His eyes widened in a split second as he left a small gasp, dramatically covering his mouth. "Hyuuuuung! Is it what I think it is!?"

Seonghwa huffed out a short sigh as he walked towards the younger and gave him a small smack on his head, making Wooyoung wince in pain. "It is not what you think it is, dumb. But...what are YOU doing here?" Seonghwa asked.

Wooyoung's expressions suddenly changed from 'being shocked' to 'got caught'.

"Uhmm....." he trailed off as he sheepishly scratched the nape of his neck. "You were going out right? Didn't we talk about it just yesterday??" Seonghwa's voice got deeper.

"I-I'm not going out!! I was just...." Wooyoung frowned, unable to say anything further. His eyes suddenly landed on me as he realized I was still standing here, looking at those two.

"...but hyung! What are you both doing here? I thought you guys left earlier to meet Hongjoong hyung."

Seonghwa glanced at me and turned towards him, without saying a word. A small smile slowly appeared on Wooyoung's face as he gently tapped on Seonghwa's shoulder before he walked towards me.

Seonghwa didn't bother to turn, his back still faced us.

Wooyoung grabbed my hand surprisingly and pulled me gently as he started walking in the same direction from where we had just came. As we rushed past Seonghwa, Wooyoung stopped for a bit.

He almost whispered in to Seonghwa's ear, "Hyung... I kinda know what you were you up to but thank god you bumped in to me. And I love you so much, don't worry I won't tell Hongjoong hyung anything this time. But you know...in exchange, don't tell about me too, okay?" I could almost feel Wooyoung's little smile even though his back was facing me. "I'll now take Soph to Hongjoong's office."

He started walking again, not waiting for the older to say anything. I glanced back at Seonghwa, who was no longer looking at us. His head was hung low, staring at the floor and he didn't move even a bit till I could no longer see him.

What was that? What the fuck did just happen?

My head was clouded with a number of thoughts. I had no idea why Seonghwa didn't want me here.

What happened to Wooyoung? Why wasn't he allowed to go out? Why did someone like Seonghwa even listen to Wooyoung and didn't even say anything back?

There was so much going on here.

━━━━━

Wooyoung led me through a couple of corridors and finally after climbing up a huge staircase which I had no idea existed, we reached the first floor. I looked at my surroundings, totally impressed by the fact that it looked completely different from the whole house. My own room was at the first floor, but I didn't even know this part of the house existed.

Man, I really need to see the plan of this house....I'll ask Yunho later.

Wooyoung noticed me and smiled. "It's nicer right?" he asked.

"What is?" "This part. It's differently decorated...it's darker from the rest of the house." He added as I scanned my surroundings once again. It was obviously totally different from the other rooms and corridors I had been through.

The whole corridor was filled with a shade of red velvet carpet, wallpaper and ceilings, even the doors alongside were dark brown and the objects glittered of gold, blinding my eyes. The whole place was dull than the rest of the house, but still had it's own 'rich' look.

"It's beautiful. The whole house is pale white and gold, but this part is red and gold. It's hot." I commented at which Wooyoung chuckled, nodding in reponse.

"This part is...um...you can say for official stuff only? You'll understand soon." He replied as he knocked on the door. It wasn't a huge door or something, it was just the size of the normal doors but it felt like there was something important in there.

Wooyoung didn't wait for a response after knocking and directly opened it, pulling me in along with him.

My eyes fell on the sliver haired boy, sitting at the center of the room, on a chair which was too big for his size. His elbows were on the table, a small smile on his face as soon as he saw me.

"Hi Sophie! You took pretty long! Anyways, sit down." He gestured to the chair in front of him. I sat down as he noticed Wooyoung. "Ah..yes...I, um got a little lost." I lied, as Wooyoung had told me to.

"Wait, wasn't Seonghwa gonna come with you? Woo, what are you doing here?"

"I don't know exactly hyung. Seonghwa left urgently somewhere after the breakfast and Sophie started to find your office on her own, but got lost and bumped in to me...so here I am." Wooyoung flashed a smile at at which Hongjoong nodded, slightly disappointed. "Hm...Seonghwa shouldn't have done that. He never does that. Okay, never mind. You can leave if you want to Woo."

"Yup. Bye!" within an instant, Wooyoung disappeared, closing the door behind him. I looked at Hongjoong who was now frantically searching something in his drawers.

"Ah thank god. Here it is! I would've cried if I had lost them." Hongjoong held up a file in hand, waving it hard enough to make the papers in it fall down any moment. I laughed at his foolishness. He just looked intimidating, but was totally the opposite.

"Yah laugh all you want, but I'm really bad at taking care of things. I also got my laptop stolen few years back!!" He pouted as he came back to his chair, opening the file.

"A laptop!?" I asked surprisingly. Laptop was my life, literally. I would never forgive myself if that ever happened to me. But thanks to my decision of joining them, even my laptop is with them now.

"Not just any laptop! There were so many important files in it!" He explained and I gave him a 'aw man, that sucks' look.

"Okay now yes. Back to business. Nothing much, you just have to fill out a form kind of thing to be officially a part of Ateez. Here. This is the contract. If you want, you can first have a look at these."

He pushed the file towards me and opened a page with a photo of a teenage boy, loosely dangling at the corner of the page. I took the file and squinted my eyes to have a closer look.

"Oh! It's you!?" I exclaimed, half questioning and half answering. A big smile appeared on his face as he nodded happily.

"You are good with faces Sophie! This was me in my high school. And these are our forms."